Exiled Then Reborn As The Vengeful Luna

Chapter 5

Ryke.

My growl ripped through the air as someone yanked my mate away.

My. Mate.

The words echoed in my mind, stark and undeniable. I’d given up hoping to find her. After over three centuries of existence, I’d accepted that the Moon Goddess had forsaken me. I’d killed too many. Made too many selfish choices to survive. My hands were stained with the blood of so many others.

Yet here, the impossible had happened. My mate was in front of me, and someone had the nerve to take her from my sight.

My fury burned hot as my eyes flashed to the perpetrator.

A blonde woman wedged herself between me and my mate, blocking my line of sight. My lips curled back in a lethal snarl, but she ignored me. She turned to the gathered crowd instead and lifted her chin, her voice ringing out with poisonous supremacy.

"It's impossible!," she said. "The traitor filth can't be mated to the great Alpha Ryke!"

My rage ignited at the insult to my mate. My hands shook at my sides, longing to rip the blonde apart for daring to speak such foul words.

Then I got a clear look at her. Recognition registered. Avery Ravenwood.

The insufferable she-wolf who had hounded me since I’d arrived at this pack a few days ago. I’d ignored her, but here she was before me now, her presence an unpleasant interruption.

Avery stood before me, her blue eyes gleaming with conviction.

"I feel it," she said, placing a hand on my chest, right over my heart. "I am your true mate."

My muscles clenched. A cold, humorless laugh nearly escaped. The audacity.

I was about to brush her hand aside and possibly snap her wrist in the process, when something odd happened.

A tiny pinprick of feeling pulsed beneath her touch.

My brows furrowed.

It was barely noticeable, just a flutter of something above my heart.

A trick?

Before I could check, my head fuzzed.

A fog settled over my eyes.

Everything was changing. The world tilted, rearranged itself.

Everything blurred, my vision tunneling down to the blonde before me.

An aura emanated from Avery, glimmering in the evening air.

She faced the crowd, her voice echoing with utter conviction.

"I am his rightful mate!"

She turned to me again, eyes piercing.

"Am I not?" she asked, her voice running with confidence like honey.

I blinked, stunned.

I tried to look past her, tried to search for the woman with midnight hair but Avery moved into my line of vision again, taking control of my attention.

Something fell into place.

A pull. A certainty.

The sight of her filled me with… something he could not explain. Something final.

My wolf twisted inside him, howling in distress.

But the feeling was distant, muffled.

My lips parted.

And the word left me in a low, primal growl.

“Mate.”

A wide smile spread across Avery’s face.

She turned, triumphant.

“I, Avery Ravenwood, accept you, Alpha Ryke Blackclaw, as my fated mate."

The words echoed through the pack square, and before I could think, before I could question*m, the vow expanded in my throat in response.

"I, Ryke Blackclaw, accept you, Avery Revenwood, as my fated mate."

The moment the words left him, something shifted within.

My wolf fought against it, clawing, thrashing, but the fight was far away, overlaid with a haze.

The female before me, Avery, became the most important thing to me. She was my mate.

The bond was set.

A surge of magic washed through the air, sealing the connection.

Gasps rippled through the crowd.

Juanita.

The name whispered through my head, quietly but distant, like an echo in an empty room.

Something was not right.

Then I heard it.

A soft, broken noise.

My head whipped instinctively towards the sound.

There, kneeling in the dirt, was the midnight woman I’d nearly claimed just minutes earlier.

Juanita.

Her midnight hair cascaded over her shaking shoulders, her fists clenched on the ground. Tears poured down her face, her face a picture of utter devastation.

My chest hurt.

Something deep inside me howled in agony.

Why?

Why did she look like that?

Why did my wolf rage in agony at the sight of her pain?

Avery turned sharply, her gaze locking onto Juanita. Her lips curled in cruel satisfaction.

Then, with a raised hand, she pointed at her.

“Witch!” Avery’s voice rang through the square.

A hush fell.

A moment of silence.

Then there was pandemonium.

The pack square broke out into cries.

"She tried to steal my mate!" Avery stepped forward, her voice dripping with malice. "She bewitched him! Tricked him! She wanted to make my Alpha hers!"

The mutterings in the crowd became shouts of outrage.

The accusing eyes' weight fell on Juanita, the shock giving way to aggression.

“She's truly a traitor's daughter!" one shouted.

"She was cursed from the beginning!" spat another.

"She tried to deceive the Moon Goddess!"

The charges piled on top of each other, more outrageous, more brutal, the mob's hysteria growing into something threatening.

Juanita was motionless on her knees, her face pale, her lips parted in shock.

Ryke felt... wrong.

Something inside me recoiled at the spectacle before me.

Still, the fog inside my head held strong.

Avery turned to me, her hand seeking mine, warm to the touch.

My instincts screamed. I felt stuck.

But when she leaned closer, her breath whispering, "My Alpha," the stiffening in my body eased.

Everything was… right.

Wasn't it?